St. Louis ? Rep. Dick Gephardt, a 26-year veteran of Congress and the former House Democratic leader, announced his second candidacy for president Wednesday, pledging to repeal most of President Bush’s tax cuts to finance “quality health coverage for everyone who works in America.”

The eighth candidate in a growing Democratic field, Gephardt sought to distinguish himself from lesser-known rivals for the party’s nomination. “I think experience matters,” said the Missouri lawmaker who sought the presidency in 1988.

“I’m not the political flavor of the month. I’m not the flashiest candidate around,” he said. “But the fight for working families is in my bones.”

Gephardt’s health care plan, one of the most ambitious policy initiatives of the fledgling campaign, would give billions of dollars in tax credits to businesses and require them to invest the money in employee insurance benefits. To pay for it, Gephardt would repeal virtually all of Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax cut plan, including politically popular benefits to middle-class Americans.

Addressing at least 500 friends, family and supporters at his former elementary school’s gymnasium, Gephardt said, “Here in the home of my values, here at the heart of the American dream, I announce my candidacy for the president of the United States.”

“I’m running for president because I’m tired of leadership that’s left us isolated in the world, and stranded here at home,” Gephardt said.

While saying he supports Bush’s efforts to disarm Iraq, without the United Nations if necessary, Gephardt said the president’s go-it-alone rhetoric has alienated allies. “We must lead the world instead of merely bullying it,” he said.

Gephardt, 62, ran for president in 1988 but his candidacy fizzled for lack of money after he won the Democratic caucuses in Iowa. He took the unenviable job of minority leader after the 1994 elections that gave Republicans control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

It was Gephardt who handed the gavel to Newt Gingrich, officially transferring power to the conservative Republican on what he later called one of the worst days of his life. He failed to return the Democrats to majority status in four closely fought elections between 1996 and 2002.

The sandy-haired, youthful-looking Gephardt has built a formidable network of party activists and fund-raisers, and he is the only Democratic candidate who has sought the presidency before.

After his announcement, Gephardt rushed to Iowa, the first test in the presidential election cycle, where he told union activists that Bush’s economic plan was “mindless. It doesn’t make sense. It’s hurting our economy.”